description, make his mother perceive it;
who was terribly frightened all this while to hear him conversing, as it
seemed to her, with nothing; and she imputed it to the disorder of his
mind. But Hamlet begged her not to flatter her wicked soul in such a
manner as to think that it was his madness, and not her own offences,
which had brought his father's spirit again on the earth. And he bade
her feel his pulse, how temperately it beat, not like a madman's. And he
begged of her with tears, to confess herself to heaven for what was
past, and for the future to avoid the company of the king, and be no
more as a wife to him: and when she should show herself a mother to him,
by respecting his father's memory, he would ask a blessing of her as a
son. And she promising to observe his directions, the conference ended.

And now Hamlet was at leisure to consider who it was that in his
unfortunate rashness he had killed: and when he came to see that it was
Polonius, the father of the Lady Ophelia, whom he so dearly loved, he
drew apart the dead body, and, his spirits being now a little quieter,
he wept for what he had done.

The unfortunate death of Polonius gave the king a pretence for sending
Hamlet out of the kingdom. He would willingly have put him to death,
fearing him as dangerous; but he dreaded the people, who loved Hamlet,
and the queen, who, with all her faults, doted upon the prince, her son.
So this subtle king, under pretence of providing for Hamlet's safety,
that he might not be called to account for Polonius' death, caused him
to be conveyed on board a ship bound for England, under the care of two
courtiers, by whom he despatched letters to the English court, which in
that time was in subjection and paid tribute to Denmark, requiring for
special reasons there pretended, that Hamlet should be put to death as
soon as he landed on English ground. Hamlet, suspecting some treachery,
in the night-time secretly got at the letters, and skilfully erasing
his own name, he in the stead of it put in the names of those two
courtiers, who had the charge of him, to be put to death: then sealing
up the letters, he put them into their place again. Soon after the ship
was attacked by pirates, and a sea-fight commenced; in the course of
which Hamlet, desirous to show his valour, with sword in hand singly
boarded the enemy's vessel; while his own ship, in a cowardly manner,
bore away, and leaving him to his fate, the two courtiers made